Having retired at 60, Jean Price was depended on her £46-a-week state pension to help pay the bills. But after two months, the payment was stopped.
 
Mrs Price, who has worked all her life, found that a woman with the same name and date of birth had also been allocated the same National Insurance number and had been using it legitimately for years.

The details of the other Jean Price, who lives eight miles away in Timperley, Greater Manchester, are now the only ones which the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) recognise. This means that Mrs Price, from Stockport, cannot claim her pension because she does not have her own number. Her pension has been cut off for the past five months and this has left her and her disabled husband Alan, 56, penniless. The couple recently had their telephone disconnected because they could not pay the bill.
 
Both  her pension and a carer's allowance have been cut while an investigation is carried out. Mrs Price said she was in 'complete shock' when her pension was stopped, but she was even more worried when two official fraud investigators came up to interview her. Eventually they discovered that I shared the same number as another lady with the same name living in Greater Manchester. Both women began work at the age of 15 in 1962 and would have been issued with separate NI numbers. The conflict apparently started when, after taking the married name of Price, one of them returned to work after having children and was issued with the NI number of her namesake. 

The Timperley Jean Price, a mother of three, said she had also suffered over the mix-up.  Although she now receives a pension of around £40 a week her husband was initially hauled in for questioning over allegations of fraud.   shesaid that it had been a nightmare from start to finish and she feels bad that she is receiving her pension while her namesake has been left without.
The case raises questions over whether other workers have lost their National Insurance number because of a similar mix-up.

'Depending on the outcome, any entitlement would be backdated. However, the receipt of an existing means-tested benefit can often reduce or extinguish payments.'

I wonder if they will also investigate their Income Tax payments?

I saw this Evac, its awful but what I find so frightening about it is, they make the mistake but you have to prove them wrong. It is always a fight to get things put right when the pensions people get it wrong,what if you haven't the know how or the strength to keep on at them and no family to help. Its disgusting.

Why didn't it show up with Inland Revenue and Nat. Ins. contributions?  Ignored when taking money, dealt with when paying out?